Careful when traveling with your guitar

[bammbamm]

‘Musician’s worst nightmare’: Vintage Gibson guitar mangled by airline baggage handlers | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News

Poor guy.

[Cobrango]

And I was just thinking about taking it with me for christmas. Glad I left it home. Is hardcase not enough for taking it on an airplane?
Looks like we've got to invest on some skb's waterproof flightcases for the guitars. that's kind of sad, but an insurance at least.
I don't want to have two cases for every guitar, an amp cover and flightcase, a 4U bag and a 4U hardcase and a 4U flightcase. I don't have room for all this stuff. Ahh, who am I fooling I don't even have a band. As Metallica would have put it "sad but true". I'm so having a band this year! Now where did I put that spandex..

[bammbamm]

LOL. You should be able to take a guitar as a carry on in a gig bag... or so I thought.

[immortal_soloist]

LOL. You should be able to take a guitar as a carry on in a gig bag... or so I thought.

That's what I thought too because one guitar is allowed in a soft shell.So in 2008 I was travelling on Emirates Flight,it was an international flight
and I took my 1 month old Ernie Ball Musicman JP with me in a soft shell case,I was allowed through the customs with it but in the boarding lounge
the jerk from Emirates said there was no place for the guitar inside the plane cause there are too many people on the flight and my guitar would have
to be checked in. I argued a lot but had no success and when I arrived to my destination it scratched up and was a mess. I never got it to sound the same,
never got rid of the buzzing problem it developed regardless of going so many times to the the repair center,the problem kept returning,tuning and intonation
problems never left me regardless of all the repairs,and the repairs were done very well but the guitar was a mess. This year I finally put it in a case and it's
in a store room it's unplayable. So yea get a damn good hard shell case and never attempt to take it with you inside cause you'll get screwed.

[Sidivan]

I've worked in the airline industry for 12 years. You are allowed to carry "1 musical instrument" on the plane, so long as it fits in the compartment. At the VERY LEAST, you should be able to "gate check" the guitar, which means after they load all the luggage, they take the gate checks and put them on top. When de-planing, the gate checks are taken off first and handed to their owners.

My wife just brought back a 4' rainstick from guatemala last month and I confirmed it.

[Sixstring]

There is NO way I would bring a guitar of that type on an airline with out it being cased in an a flight case. The guy took a chance and lost a very nice instrument.

[immortal_soloist]

I've worked in the airline industry for 12 years. You are allowed to carry "1 musical instrument" on the plane, so long as it fits in the compartment. At the VERY LEAST, you should be able to "gate check" the guitar, which means after they load all the luggage, they take the gate checks and put them on top. When de-planing, the gate checks are taken off first and handed to their owners.

My wife just brought back a 4' rainstick from guatemala last month and I confirmed it.

Thanks for this Sidivan the dude from Emirates airlines was an absolute jerk. I told him to place it in a way that it's safe. The bastard didn't help. I'll keep this gate check thing in mind now.
My guitar was absolutely going to fit in their plane,I have travelled so many times with them but they still didn't let me take it in,they said no space.

[Phostenix]

[Longhair]

And I was just thinking about taking it with me for christmas. Glad I left it home. Is hardcase not enough for taking it on an airplane?
Looks like we've got to invest on some skb's waterproof flightcases for the guitars. that's kind of sad, but an insurance at least.
I don't want to have two cases for every guitar, an amp cover and flightcase, a 4U bag and a 4U hardcase and a 4U flightcase. I don't have room for all this stuff. Ahh, who am I fooling I don't even have a band. As Metallica would have put it "sad but true". I'm so having a band this year! Now where did I put that spandex..

Make sure that it has wheels. Those things get heavy after about 2 minutes in the airport.